In the Eye of the Beholder
by Loki's Captain
Summary: Alternate ending to 1x05 'Bloody Mary'. Hurt!Sam. Temporary blindness. This was supposed to be a drabble for my English class but it got a little long so it turned into this oneshot. Enjoy! (Rated T for gore.)


**Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to the television show Supernatural, this is purely a work of fanfiction.**

 **[A/N: Please read and review, it means a lot to me. This isn't my best work, I wrote it in English class, thus why the ending is a little rushed.]**

"That one!" Sam shouted.

"Which one?" Dean replied in the same manner as he ran about the antique shop searching for the right mirror. The simple salt and burn had turned into a more complex case when the brothers found out this ghost was actually Bloody Mary. She could appear anywhere, through any reflection, as opposed to within the close vicinity to a specific object.

"That one!" Sam yelled frantically as he struggled to keep his hands over his eyes, though he wanted desperately to look in the mirror although it would mean his death. Right now he was less than useless, and saying 'that one' wasn't helping Dean at all.

Dean ran in the rough direction that his younger brother was pointing but it still wasn't clear which mirror the twenty-two year old was referring to. Before coming here they had found a picture of the object but Dean hadn't realised that there was going to be another mirror that looked like it... And another... And another... And a whole shop full after that.

"Why are there so many goddamn mirrors in this shop!" He shouted in frustration as he methodically smashed the closest mirror with the crow bar he was holding, Dean was going to have so much bad luck after this.

When the twenty-six year old had done that he sighed and carefully walked over to the shaky form of his brother, who was standing in the centre of the room, hands covering his eyes like some church statue of an angel. As he went, Dean glared at every mirror he saw, he was fairly sure he'd smashed the right one, the mirror keeping the spirit here, but Dean wasn't going to let his guard down quite yet, if at all.

"Dean, can I open my eyes now?" Sam asked, still feeling the inexplicable urge to stare at the nearest reflective surface, but he put that down to his mind playing tricks on him, he'd (ironically) never been fond of darkness. If the spirit was still here Sam would be hearing more of a commotion right now rather than his brother's steady footsteps on shattered glass.

"Yeah... Yeah I think we're good." Dean told him after a brief pause.

The ghost had targeted Sam after they had helped a young girl who was the spirit's next victim. Apparently prolonging the teenager's life, if only by a day, had angered Mary quite considerably. Unfortunately the spirit hadn't tried to kill Sam until they were inside the antique store, if Dean had known he wouldn't have led Sam into a room which seemed to house the world's largest collection of reflective objects.

Sam lowered his eyes and both men sighed in relief when nothing immediately pounced upon them.

"I'll meet you in the car, just let me grab my stuff." Sam said thinking of the few things he had dropped a couple rooms over when the spirit had made herself known.

"Ye, alright Sammy." Dean called over his shoulder, already on his way outside to where the impala was waiting for them. Once Dean got to the car he threw the iron crowbar carelessly into the boot, the back door shutting with an audible click moments later. The brother waited ten minutes, sitting behind the wheel, before he began to wonder what was taking Sam so long. He then started glancing in the rear view mirror periodically, soon he was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel too. Finally Dean sprung out of the car, shutting the door behind him as he marched into the antique store for the second time that night.

"Sammy! We need to go before the real feds show up!" Dean called out as he walked further into the main room where Sam's things still lay untouched. Dean frowned. "Sam?" He asked quietly, hesitantly, as he knelt down and ran his fingers lightly over his brother's possessions almost noncommittally while he focused his hearing for any sign of Sam.

When Dean heard no reply he advanced into the next room after picking up the saw-off gun. Unfortunately this building was made up of many rooms, any one could be holding Sam. He knew he was jumping to conclusions, but Sam Winchester wasn't known for his ability to stay out of trouble.

* * *

Meanwhile, Sam was standing on the second floor pressed up against the hallway wall, eyes moving rapidly back and forth behind his hands even though he wouldn't be able to see anything. He reminded himself that Dean would be here soon, his brother would be able to guide him out of the shop and deal with the spirit. Easy. Just salt and burn, smash the mirror.

As he had been going to grab his things Sam had picked up the torch - which wasn't working thanks to Mary's electrical interference - and by happenstance he had looked at the glass. The reflective glass. Instead of being met with his own face, Sam had been staring straight at the zoomed in profile of one angry, vengeful spirit. He'd quickly thrown the torch to the ground, letting it roll across the floor into the shadows. Wasn't the spirit supposed to be gone?

From there Sam had been cornered. Unable to reach the glass door he had been forced further into the building, mainly by touch and short term memory, speeding through the darkened rooms without getting to close to any mirrors. Of course, that hadn't worked out all to well and now Sam was slowly lowering his hands, looking into the clear, glass vase sat on a cabinet in front of him. Now turning, face to face with a full length mirror that was easily as wide as it was high, and old too. However, Sam wasn't taking much notice to trivial things like that, he wasn't taking his eyes off of himself, well his reflection.

At a first glance everything seemed fine but take a moment longer and you could notice the red rimmed eyes, like a bloody eyeliner, quite discreet in comparison to the other, more noticeable, differences; A figure, one which moved close each time she flickered out of view. Yes, she was definitely the Mary they had suspected her to be, albeit she now looked like she'd just walked off the set of 'an American haunting'.

Sam's gaze was drawn back to himself, it felt like a magnetic pull and now that he was looking, there was no turning away. That didn't stop the twenty-two year old from trying, to no avail.

With each step the spirit took closer to Sam he saw a drop of blood fall onto his lashes or cheek, leaving the looking nothing less than ghastly. He knew that if he could turn around he would not see Mary, she was only a reflection, it seemed this was the mirror she had attached herself to.

The woman walked until she was side by side with Sam's reflection, at least he thought she was, he couldn't turn his head to check. As well as that Sam was almost blinded by the liquid running down his face like tears, cold with a metallic smell. The same liquid now coming out of his ears as his brain liquidized slowly and oh so painfully, he had seen the autopsy reports, he knew what was happening. She had to make sure her victims died dramatically (and helplessly) didn't she.

Sam could almost feel Mary's phantom presence beside him,a chill, hairs standing on end, a feeling of static electricity running up and down hi spine. It wasn't until a moment later that he realised the ghost really was standing beside him, being so close to the mirror must have strengthened her abilities.

Through the shroud of pain he felt her drag a hand harshly up his arm, sharp nails no doubt leaving marks. The hand continued upwards, brushed a lock of his hair away to tuck it behind his ear.

The spirit's left hand was now holding the other side of his head. Sam could barely feel the light touch through the haze of pain focused mainly around the crown of his head. The pain wasn't unbearable but it was pretty damn close to it, his eyes were rolling back slightly in their sockets; anything to get away from the wash of blood filling up his entire vision.

Shouldn't Dean have got here by now? He said he would gank the spirit, and surely by now he had to have noticed his absence. Sam didn't know how much longer he had left, paralysed like this, blood filling his mouth whenever he tried to take a breath, choking him.

* * *

Dean ran up the stairs, taking them two, three, at a time. He skidded a little as he turned to face the hallway where he found his brother... And the spirit... And a whole fucking load of blood.

"Hey, bitch!" Dean shouted, making Mary turn around just in time to see the salt rounds fired at her. She disappeared as soon as they hit, Dean knew she would be back any minute though. The older brother quickly rushed over to Sam, putting an arm round him protectively.

"Sammy, we need to get you out of here." Sam turned his head when he heard his brother speak but was too far gone to understand anything past the recognition of his voice but that was good enough for now.

"'T h'rts Dean." Sam slurred while latching onto his brother with a grip that was surprisingly strong, Dean had to remind himself once more that Sam wasn't the thin, gangly, eighteen year old that left him and dad four years ago.

"Yeah, I know buddy. Hang in there." Dean had to say Sam wasn't exactly looking good, and the bleeding didn't look as if it was going to stop. Dean glanced around until his eyes landed on the largest mirror he'd seen so far, from how close it was to the he would bet good money this was the object of attachment. He took a few steps back, lowered Sam gently to the floor so he could lean against the wall (more like sag against it) while Dean fired a few shots as the mirror. Salt, check. It only took a few seconds to sprinkle a little holy water over the frame as he looked around warily, waiting for the spirit to appear.

Reaching into the back pocket of his jeans he pulled out some matches he always carried around just in case and lit one deftly, but before he had a chance to throw it on the mirror he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand right on end, and a moment later Mary was standing mere inches in front of him. With a flick of her hand she sent him flying into the nearest wall with a thud, causing a picture to fall onto his shoulder, though Dean didn't notice it too much, it was only a small photo.

"Damn son of a bitch." He cursed as he climbed back onto his feet. Dean turned back around to face the mirror and saw that the spirit was crouching beside his brother. "Oh, hell no, you get away from my brother." Dean fired a few shots at the spirit not thinking about the chance of them hitting his brother instead, it was only salt after all.

Once again she disappeared and Dean threw a lit match on the mirror, he watched it go up in flames, Bloody Mary with her. As soon as Dean was sure the ghost was gone for real this time he turned around and went to his brother, cringing at the sight of him. His face was a bloody mess and all his clothes would need to be burned. his hair glistened slick with the red liquid and his head drooped forwards.

"Come on Sammy, we better believe before the feds get here." Dean muttered more to himself than his brother, who it seemed was unconscious. Slinging the twenty-two year old's arm of his shoulder, somehow Dean dragged his moose of a brother back to the Impala and drive away, ten minutes later on the way to the motel he saw a few cop cars pass them by on the road.

* * *

Dean managed to get Sam back to their room, he was surprised his younger brother hadn't woken up yet, and more than a little worried by that.

The first thing he did was clean up the blood which had dried on Sam's face reminding which didn't look at all appealing. Nothing seemed too bad after that had all been washed away, maybe he was overreacting. Sam didn't wake up the whole time Dean was taking out shards of glass out of his hair or moving his brother from the bathroom to his bed though there was the occasional groan or muttered word.

"Sleep it off, sleep it off." Dean muttered to himself before he turned away and sorted himself out, though he really only had a couple bruises.

The older brother stripped down to boxers and a shirt, took one last look at his brother, then turned and went to sleep, he could ask Sammy how he was in the morning.

* * *

 **Part II**

 **[A/N: So I am no expert on blindness and how to heal it so I'm going to cheat and say anything that might not be possible is possible because of the demon blood.**

 **I was going to elaborate and write a lot of blind!Sam, but I've been a bit distracted so I'll leave a gap and might add a chapter filling in later.]**

Dean woke up when he heard Sam shout, he grabbed the gun and pointed it towards the door before he was even fully awake. He frowned when he realised there was no intruder, no obvious cause for Sam's noise at all in fact.

"Sam?" He asked, silently prompting for an explanation to the 6am wake up.

"Dean?" Sam replied far more shakily. "Dean, I can't see. I can't see..." He repeated to himself, distraught.

All the younger Winchester could make out was black, no shapes, no shadows, not even light. He had no idea what was going on, but he could tell he was in a bed.

"What?!" Dean half shouted, shit, maybe he had been wrong to think Sam was okay so quickly, Dean hadn't even thought to check Sam's eyes, though he probably should have since 'liquefied eyes' had been on all the autopsy reports.

He practically jumped out of his bed and onto Sam's, grabbing his younger brother's face with both hands and turned it to face him, not bothering to realise how even such simple things might scare the hell out of Sam. He leaned forwards and looked at the mess that was his brother's eyes.

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit." Dean muttered to himself as he let go of his brother's face and looked at the ground. "How the hell am I supposed to fix this, I don't think these things heal Sam." In that moment Dean felt his mood plummet, because it was his job to look after Sam and he had failed, his brother was blind-and dear lord what was he going to do?!

"Woah, slow down Dean." Sam forced himself to sound calm, he had to when his brother sounded so frantic. In all reality Sam was anything butcalm, he couldn't see he wasn't supposed to be fine with it. Not only that his hearing seemed to have heightened and it was so overwhelming: He could hear his brother's harsh breathes the coupe having sex in the next room, the water rushing n the pipes in the walls, cars passing by outside (yeah, alright, he could have heard that anyway) and they all jumbled together into one noise that his brother's voice only just rose above. Then there was his touch, suddenly the already horrible bed felt even harder and bumpier, the covers scratched at his bare arms and Dean's grip on him had felt much tighter than usual. "We don't know what's wrong, but I can't see and we need to fix this."

"Sam, you're blind I really don't think this is one of those things you can just take a couple pills for, this type of thing is permanent!" Neither got anything sorted or decided until over an hour later, too busy panicking both inwardly and outwardly. Finally the younger Winchester tried to get up, Dean was sitting on his own bed, head in his hands, sparing a glance upwards before looking back down. Sam swung his legs round and stood up and using his memory tried to determine where everything was situated in the room. He failed. Pretty dramatically. And face planted the floor, hard.

Dean was by his side a moment later, sitting him up, Sam could just imagine the look that was on Dean face right now, even when he couldn't see it he hated it.

"I'll fix this... Dad's journal will have something if not we can go to Bobby's alright, you just stay there-" Dean led his brother back to sit on his bed gently. "-And I'll get this all fixed." Sam could hear the earnestness in his brother's voice and wanted to cringe, did Dean really think a hunter would know how to fix this? This was something natural not supernatural. He let his brother go anyway.

The twenty-two year old tried to imagine being blind permanently, he wouldn't be able to carry on hunting that was for sure, not with the rate that Dean went through cases. And if he wasn't hunting what the hell was he supposed to do?... Sam stopped that trail of thought right there, he had faith in Dean, if anyone could fix this, his son of a bastard brother would be the one.

* * *

 **Two weeks later...**

The bandages were lifted off tentatively and Sam looked up to see the blurry faces of Dean and Bobby looking hopefully at him. He waited a moment then beamed at his brother.

"It worked." Sam said. Dean had found some shaman ritual to 'heal all ailments', it had been risky, and didn't have a high chance of success, but it had worked.

The younger Winchester had only spent two weeks without his sight, and two weeks was far longer than enough, probably the scariest fourteen days of his life actually. Even though he had spent the majority of his time here at Bobby's everything made him jump, literally every tiny sound, because he had no idea if it came from somebody standing right next to him or someone three rooms away. Also, he kept bumping into everything, no matter how many times he told himself the kitchen table was three steps away from the wall he always hit one or the other.

They only spent a couple hours there before they found a case which looked like a skin walker, and they were off again, the incident completely forgotten about, Sam's senses still a little better than they had been before, and Dean now more determined than ever to keep his brother safe, no need to let him know it wasn't just some innocent shamanism that healed him.


End file.
